


Brilliance

by afterandalasia



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canon Compliant, Community: hobbit_kink, F/M, Galadriel Being Awesome, Headcanon, Obsession, One-Sided Relationship, References to Incest, Valinor, Wordcount: 500-1.000, Years of the Trees
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 04:25:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/845292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are many reasons for Fëanor's descent into darkness. But she is perhaps foremost among them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brilliance

She spits in his face as he stands on her father's doorstep, attempting to humble himself for long enough to apologise and form some sort of truce once again. For half such cheek in any of her brothers, Fëanor would have drawn his sword, but from her he can only stand astonished until the door is slammed in his face.

So that was Artanis, daughter of Finarfin. If his half-brother had a fraction such fire in his blood, perhaps they would have found themselves on better terms.

 

Finarfin takes her to apologise, but he can see that she does not mean a word of it. It is in the set of her shoulders, the line of her lips, the silver-blue light of her eyes. Her hair is in thick ropes that twist and weave down over one shoulder to her waist, and it is like nothing that he has ever seen before. He wants to see what it looks like woven with his jewels.

He accepts her apology anyway, to see the fury in her eyes and because he can see already that he will never be able to deny her.

 

Once or twice, Fëanor walks close to the Trees when he knows that she is with her friends there, arguing lore or playing games with balls and hoops. As soon as Artanis sees him, she tosses her hair and shoots him a glower that makes his heart beat faster.

 

He dreams of her, and wakes with sweat dripping from his skin and his body aching with heat. It is not just the taut young body which belies itself beneath her robes (though still he cannot shake those thoughts, the yearning to run his hands over the muscles of her back, to suckle the sweat from her skin) but the fierceness with which she fought him from the first, and the way in which she argues so passionately with her fellows.

It is not eavesdropping, he tells himself, should he happen to pass close enough to hear what she says to them, how fiercely she defends herself. It is chance that he stands where he can watch the light in her hair.

 

He yearns to tangle his fingers in that silver-golden fountain. More than once, at the forge, he finds himself trying to coax metals into an imitation of it, but he cannot make anything more than the faintest forgery. With a snarl of frustration, he throws the crucibles of molten metal across the room, and watches them dim and fade on the floor.

 

When he sees her beneath the Trees, he can take it no longer, and asks her for a strand of her hair. But one strand, he thinks, to watch the lustre in, to try to reproduce.

She looks at him in horror, then laughs.

 

It is not their shared blood which is the sin, not in his eyes. There is no-one else like him in this world, he can feel it already, but thinks that she might come closest. It is that she does not want him in return.

 

He asks a second time, for but one strand, offering her any item of his crafts that she might desire in return. Metal, glass, jewels -- anything, he promises her, anything she might consider a trade.

This time laughter does not come from her lips. She calls him sick, and shies away from him, leaving him clutching at thin air in the twilight.

 

By the third time, Fëanor is angry. He will beg no longer, and climbs the wall into Finarfin's garden to catch her there. The day is hot and bright, and she is lightly clad, silk skimming her breasts and her long legs exposed. It is only further to her credit, he thinks, that Artanis does not cover herself but glares at him fiercely as she climbs to her feet.

"You are not welcome here," she says. "I have told you that before."

"And I have said my words before, but you have not listened to them." His voice is hoarse, as if he has been standing too long at the forge, breathing smoke without a thought for his own safety. It has happened before. "I ask for but one strand of your hair, for there is nothing like it that I have ever seen. Even I, at the fire--"

"Even you." Artanis narrows her eyes at him. "Am I another jewel for your collection?"

"No," he replies fiercely, and he knows that he means it. "My collections are mere creations. You are so much more."

For the second time in their acquaintance, she spits at him, and turns to stalk away. "And I will never give anything to those who consider it their right to demand it."

 

Metal will never do, he decides as he stands in the forge, having sent his sons and wife from it. He cannot look upon them now. And if metal cannot, then he must turn to jewels to try to capture something of her fire and brilliance, more beautiful than the Trees with their lights entwined.

Perhaps they will shine some light back down into him.


End file.
